SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up • Hacker News Board

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#101

Post by lultimouomo » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:55 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #80

Torkel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understood it correctly Starlink doesn't send between satellites yet, only sat ground. Sat sat is a big point of starlink and when they roll that out the latency should go down, especially for starlink starlink comms I imagine.

I don't understand how this is meant to lower the latency. Currently: ground satellite ground With satellite links: ground satellite satellite ground How can the latter possibly be faster? Edit: Thanks for all the responses. I'd been assuming it was a test of Starlink latency only, but if it's Starlink -> ground station -> open internet -> ISP then it would make sense how that would be slower than a pure Starlink con…

Currently:

ground satellite ground ground

With satellite links:

ground satellite satellite ground

i.e. the sat-to-sat link should be faster than the ground-to-ground link, on the basis that light transmitted in vacuum goes faster than light transmitted in glass. That's the theory at least.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#102

Post by fsiefken » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:55 AM UTC

Is there a way to use this on the go, battery powered? I wonder if it would be a good alternative to using 4g or 5g networks. How does it work indoors? Does the antenna/receiver need line of sight?

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#103

Post by martinko » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:57 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #80

Torkel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understood it correctly Starlink doesn't send between satellites yet, only sat ground. Sat sat is a big point of starlink and when they roll that out the latency should go down, especially for starlink starlink comms I imagine.

I don't understand how this is meant to lower the latency. Currently: ground satellite ground With satellite links: ground satellite satellite ground How can the latter possibly be faster? Edit: Thanks for all the responses. I'd been assuming it was a test of Starlink latency only, but if it's Starlink -> ground station -> open internet -> ISP then it would make sense how that would be slower than a pure Starlink con…

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#104

Post by blickentwapft » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:57 AM UTC

Last time I mentioned latency all the fanboys squealed about how latency isn’t a problem any more with low orbit satellites.

Whatever.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#105

Post by extropy » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:57 AM UTC

taneq wrote: post #80

Torkel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understood it correctly Starlink doesn't send between satellites yet, only sat ground. Sat sat is a big point of starlink and when they roll that out the latency should go down, especially for starlink starlink comms I imagine.

I don't understand how this is meant to lower the latency. Currently: ground satellite ground With satellite links: ground satellite satellite ground How can the latter possibly be faster? Edit: Thanks for all the responses. I'd been assuming it was a test of Starlink latency only, but if it's Starlink -> ground station -> open internet -> ISP then it would make sense how that would be slower than a pure Starlink con…

Light travels through glass (fiber optics) at 2/3 of the speed in vacuum. So as long as you are skipping some ground links by doing similar length links in space it is faster.

Low altitude orbits mean that the hops up and down can be compensated by faster hops across.

That all of course is not there yet and depends on Starlink implementing the cross sattelite links.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#106

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:57 AM UTC

ColoradoDev wrote: post #86

capableweb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Count yourself lucky you don't live in either South America, Africa or Asia, where +100ms latency is more common than not. Fortunately I can count on one hand the applications that don't work with +100ms latency (not counting gaming). Usually it's the fault of the application developers (or rather the infrastructure team) where they put too low timeouts for requests rather than letting the requests go for a bit longe…

> Fortunately I can count on one hand the applications that don't work with +100ms latency (not counting gaming). Pardon my ignorance, but what are some exampes of applications that wouldn’t work with +100 latency?

Voice chat is obnoxious with more than a few tens of ms latency.

Around about 100ms things stop appearing instantaneous, beyond the scope that everything starts to suck if you're not a patient person.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#107

Post by benbristow » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:59 AM UTC

de_watcher wrote: post #60

kome wrote: post #54

I prefer a clean sky and earth telescopes to work instead of 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up. see: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02480-5

I prefer an orbital ring already across the entire sky.

I'm sure you do, Chief.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#108

Post by emteycz » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:59 AM UTC

unishark wrote: post #61

eecc wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a waste of human ingenuity. And I thought ad-tech was bad enough

That is true for much of the finance field.

Actually it's not. There are objective benefits to society that you simply ignore.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#109

Post by capableweb » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 9:59 AM UTC

blickentwapft wrote: post #104

Last time I mentioned latency all the fanboys squealed about how latency isn’t a problem any more with low orbit satellites. Whatever.

Just as a heads up, you'll be downvoted, not because you're mentioning latency, but because your comment is low effort and basically complaining about discussions in a place where discussions are kind of the point.

Is there any new information about latency since before that you want to expand on?

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#110

Post by sverhagen » Thu, Aug 27, 2020, 10:00 AM UTC

TomGullen wrote: post #67

eecc wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a waste of human ingenuity. And I thought ad-tech was bad enough

I think you can argue on the whole is a waste, but I do believe it does have some advantages. EG efficient HFTs can reduce bid ask spreads which does save a lot of money for retail traders.

I think the premise was that such investments are wasteful if it's only for a trading arms race.